A short list of website tasks that every business should do

You’ve put a lot of effort into getting that website up and running. Finally it’s live and you can show it off to family and friends and your valued business contacts and perhaps even on Facebook. (Definitely on Facebook). Here are some things that you need to take care of after your website is launched.There are now some website tasks that you now need to take care of to get the maximum benefit from your new website. You’d be wrong to think that you can now lean back and reap the rewards. That would be a bit like advertising only to your closest friends.Most websites aim to attract new business. That will only be successful if it gets seen and used by many and preferably by many that fit the right target audience.So once your website is live it pays to check that you have everything in place for your website to reach the top of search engines quickly.

There are a few website tasks that that you should be taking care of:

Onsite SEOWork with your web developer to ensure that your keywords are on target and that your on-page SEO (that’s the SEO component that your web developer should have built into the website already) is well in place. These are things like headings, the meta data, content, image tags, etc.

MobileGoogle now puts more emphasis on mobile. It’s a good idea to work hard on the presentation of your website on mobile devices and to optimise for searches that are likely to be done on mobile, including voice searches.

Adwords initial paid advertising (but also on-going advertising)You may want to run an initial Adwords campaign to get some site visitors early on. Think about creating a separate landing page for your ads. Just keep your AdWords Campaign running if it works for you.

Links to your siteMake sure that your website has incoming links. Work with an SEO agency on link building. Find any opportunity to create links to your website from other business related websites. Some are easy and obvious: e.g. Neighbourly, your own Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, The Chamber of Commerce, and there are a host of sites (free and paid) that will offer a listing service. Consider all industry-related websites.

Use Google Analytics regularlyMake sure that you have your website linked to Google Analytics and then have a look at the Analytics results often. With every visit you will learn a bit more about how your website visitors use your website. For instance, if you see website traffic going to your “Contact Us” page and you’re not getting calls, you may need a better “call to action” on that page.

Don’t ignore other search enginesList your website on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo.

This is just a small to-do list after your website is launched. My main tip is this:

Make sure that you have access to Google Analytics and then visit it often, even daily.

SOME WEBSITE TASKS THAT NEED TO BE DONE REGULARLY

It is soul destroying to suddenly find yourself on page 6 of your Google search after you just managed to make page one. It is not always obvious why that should happen, but a here are two things that regularly get ignored and that can cause a significant slip in search ranking.

Security UpdatesYour website engine has not been updated: Yes, just like your PC, your website engine needs maintenance updates. Make sure that your web developer regularly does those updates.

Fresh ContentCreate and share content. While Google changes the rules from time to time, I regularly hear that “content is king”, so create lots of relevant content. You cannot really get away from writing blogs and articles if you want your website up there in the searches.

Hello Web is a website design and development company in Auckland, New Zealand. We like working directly with business owners to ensure an effective Internet presence. We work in the following areas:The first 10 words: Ensuring that your marketing message is spot on.Your business Story: Creating your visual story on the web. The design of your website.Building your website: Magic with Drupal or WordPress. We build your website.Digital Marketing: Everything to get your website visited often by the right target audience.

We’re a web design company based in Auckland, New Zealand. Dealing directly with SME business owners we create stunning websites and lead the SEO and digital marketing services to place them above the competition.